To be “me” or not to be

I still find it hard (read impossible) to look at myself in the mirror in presence of another person. A part of me feels too ashamed to indulge in “self-admiration” (as if looking in a mirror meant that I was Narcissus himself). A more critical part of me has this convoluted idea that if I look at myself in the mirror, the person next to me is going to think “how can she be okay with the way she looks?’ I feel so insecure of the way I do my hair, of the clothes I wear, of my physique, that I feel I am not worthy of being looked at, even by myself. And that not looking in the mirror somehow gives me an excuse for looking the way I do, because oh, I did not really see how I look at all! It barely makes sense when I try to explain it, but that does not mean that this feeling hasn’t crippled me for all my life. 

But here’s the thing- I really do not hate the way I look. I love my eyes; even with the dark circles underneath, I find them pretty because they exude genuineness. I absolutely adore my smile, it is one of my superpowers to spread happiness. I love my hands, even if they are not Instagram-worthy manicured; I have been told I’ve got the delicate hands of a surgeon. And even though my hair has thinned out compared to back when I was in school (and that worries me sometimes), I love the natural texture of my hair and the way it flows between my fingers after a wash.

A younger version of me would have been harrowed by the idea of admitting to liking anything about myself that was less than “perfect” in the eyes of the world. I could never dare to like my body if it wasn’t a certain shape, never dare to show confidence in my shoes if they weren’t spotless, never even dare to look at myself in the mirror if I wasn’t perfect (which I never was). 

I am not particularly insecure of who I am, I am more worried about the world’s perception of me. And that is dangerous. We have normalized self-criticism and self-pity so much that the idea of going against the trend and accepting oneself feels unsafe. 

Amidst all the talk about self-love and self-care, we fail to appreciate the fundamental problem in the first place- which, in my opinion, is that we have made it fashionable to not accept our own selves. Our world has become so politicized that with every single thing we come across, we feel the urge to immediately label it as either good or bad, so that we do not have to deal with any complex emotions around ambiguity and uncertainty. It is always easier to say we do not accept something, because acceptance comes with an underlying burden of taking responsibility, and I have never seen a generation more afraid of accountability than the one I am born in. 

Saying that I feel okay in my skin also means that I am saying that I take responsibility for whatever consequences I have to deal with because of my skin. This example might sound trivial, because really, what grave repercussions would I ever face because of my skin right? But history provides us with exaggerated examples of the reality where skin color has impacted every life choice. And I am not talking about the African-Americans’ struggle through slavery, I am talking about home- Indians under British rule. Even today, our obsession with fair skin is a remnant of the years of oppression, when the only way Indians could get any opportunity in the racist British system was by disowning everything “Indian” about them- including their language, their culture, and their skin color. A simple appreciation of this fact makes us realize how much of our conditioning today is just an atrocity from the past bleeding into the present. 

Accepting myself today would not threaten my survival like it did a 100 years ago, but a twisted thought makes me believe that it will threaten my social survival. And I have believed it to the extent that it has become second nature, almost like a reflex. So the question for me isn’t about “do I like my authentic self” (because I do), rather the question is “do I feel safe in being my authentic self?”

It was an overall happy day when, without giving it much thought, I casually just said “main apni favorite hun” (“I am my favorite person”), mimicking Geet from Jab We Met. And then I almost broke down into tears when I realized (with the help of my best friend), how huge a step it was for me to even think of saying that to myself. The little kid inside of me that had been criticized and overly scrutinized since childhood had finally felt accepted. 

I think this seemingly unforgiving and competitive world was never meant for humans. Our brains are wired to keep us alive, but our happiness lies in being authentic, being true to ourselves. When our survival competes (in reality or in imagination) with our authenticity, our brains give up the latter in a beat, sacrificing our happiness in the process. This post is a reminder to myself that the true purpose of life is simply to experience life as is, by being who you are. It is as simple as that, and yet, it might be the most difficult thing to do.